Links Daily Devotional

December 9, 2015

‘An Unholy Tide’

In the LORD I take refuge. (Psalm 11:1, NIV)

It’s fixing to rain here tomorrow. That’s big news in California, where we can play golf most any time we want. But they’re calling this one “a major storm,” so I think I’ll stay inside and find some comfort food.

No matter what we do in life, there will be times when circumstances conspire against us, cutting into our plans and our accomplishments. Sometimes they even rob our pleasures from us. A rainy day when we might otherwise take the time for a round of golf is one of those times. It’s a disappointment, but it’s incidental.

What we must remember at an hour like this is that God is our high ground.What is not incidental are police sirens, doctor’s diagnoses, or spousal pronouncements. What is not incidental are sea changes in the industry, hostile takeovers, or a downsizing in your department. A mother and son not far from where I live escaped a house fire recently with only the clothes on their back; her father did not make it out. That is not incidental.

The ways of the world are so often horrific. They come unannounced or unfamiliar and we are left scrambling for our lives.

This was the reality of David the psalmist. Because wickedness would not hide its teeth, David and his cohorts hid themselves. He honored the king who would kill him, Saul, but he feared the menace. Yet David did not note this trouble as his alone:

For look, the wicked bend their bows;they set arrows against the stringsto shoot from the shadowsat the upright of heart. (Psalm 11:2)

Even the blameless are targets of calamity. “What can the righteous do” David wrote in verse 3, “when the foundations are being destroyed?” It was a question he had already answered at the outset of the psalm. The righteous can find refuge in the Lord.

But here’s a powerful note: These are not really David’s personal observations. They are the observations of those who would knock him off-kilter. “Shouldn’t you be fleeing when all this terror seeks you out?” these fear peddlers suggested, with little subtlety.

You may be finding in these days that voices in your life are suggesting the same. “There is an unholy tide,” they are crying. “Run for the high ground!” What we must remember at an hour like this is that God is our high ground. There is no refuge that is not the Lord. Fix yourself to him, because sometimes you cannot outrun the tide.

(Jeff Hopper has written a helpful new article about what is most necessary in harrowing days. It is called “True Thoughts in Troubling Times,” and you’ll find it on our web site here.

Today’s writer

Jeff Hopper is the editor of the Links Daily Devotional and COO of Links Players International. He played two years of college golf and now gets out about three times a month, except in the spring when he spends his afternoons coaching a local high school team.